Mad Cow Disease 'Can Be Spread Through Air'

By David Derbyshire

Mad cow disease can be spread by airborne particles, researchers warn.

And they fear that those who work in abattoirs, slaughterhouses and laboratories could be at risk.

Their study shows prions, the infectious agents which cause BSE and its human form, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, can be dangerous if carried through the air.

In tests, mice who breathed them in developed the brain disease with 'frightening' speed and died.

The discovery could also explain why some of the victims in the 1990s were vegetarians.

Since the link between BSE-infected meat and vCJD was confirmed in 1996, 170 have died. Deaths peaked in 2000 when 28 died. Last year, there were three victims.

Prions, a type of protein, can spread on surgical instruments and in blood transfusions. It had been assumed they were not transmitted by air.

But Swiss researcher Dr Adriano Aguzzi at University Hospital Zurich and colleagues exposed laboratory mice to aerosols containing prions in a specially designed chamber.

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Europe's High-Speed Rail Revolution May Spread to U.S.

By Paul Nussbaum
The Philidelphia Inquirer, August 8, 2010
Straight to the Source

MADRID, Spain - At precisely 10:30 a.m., with quiet jazz wafting from its speakers, AVE Train 3103 glides out of Atocha Station in central Madrid, its sleek nose pointed east toward a rising sun and Barcelona.

Even with a stop in Zaragoza, the 385-mile trip, which takes seven hours by car, is scheduled to last two hours, 52 minutes. Without the stop, it's two hours, 38 minutes. Cruising speed: 186 m.p.h.

Of course, the train will be on time: If it's more than five minutes late, the passengers get their money back.

Compare that with the Pennsylvanian, the daily Amtrak train that travels a similar distance - 353 miles - from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. That laborious journey takes almost three times as long: seven hours, 23 minutes, a half-hour longer than it took in 1941. Twelve station stops. No jazz. No refunds.

Or compare it to Amtrak's Acela Express between Philadelphia and Boston: When it's on time, the train makes that 318-mile trip in about five hours. Slightly faster than driving, but slower and more expensive than flying. And it's late 30 percent of the time.



In Europe, fast trains are transforming the continent, bringing cities and countries within a few hours of one another, erasing centuries-old regional divisions, resuscitating long-dormant towns, cutting air pollution, creating new economies and manufacturing jobs, and, in a reversal of 20th-century fortunes, making some air travel obsolete.

Is this America's future, or simply a glimpse of a far-off world we'll never inhabit?

After decades of false starts, the United States is making a push for high-speed rail, which could bring many of the same changes to this side of the globe.

The Obama administration this year gave $8 billion in stimulus funds to jump-start high-speed rail projects on 13 corridors in 31 states. And the administration promised $5 billion more over the next five years.

It could be, as the administration claims, the biggest advance in U.S. transportation since construction of the interstate highway system half a century ago.



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